Twisted Fire Starter

Although nothing to do with my time here, I just recieved this picture from John, which he took at New Year and just had to post it.
No photoshopping here, this is all real!!!

Blogging

Fitted the main PC up today so am able to blog again.

Called Nutter on Skype and he has researched a little and helped me try to sort the laptop. I'm running 'ChkDsk' on it now, which will probably take all night. Hopefully this will allow me to at least access my photos and stuff.

Well, now my kitchen is sorted and I did a big shop the other day, Matt came round and cooked a curry with the use of my spices that were shipped over.

It was REALLY lush, the boy knows how to cook, and the great thing is, it was somewhat adlib with the various spices. JR called and said he was bored, so an impromptu poker night happened.
At this stage I feel that all Canadians are welcome.
If anyone has seen 'Bowling Columbine', by that Michael Moore bloke, you'll remember that he goes to Canada to ask why gun crime and violence, whilst rife in the US, doesn't exist here and he tests a theory. He had heard that Canadians don't bother to lock their doors, and he walks into some guys house, who's sat watching TV. Far from the guy asking 'who the hell are you?', in typical Canadian fashion, he just says 'Hey man, what's shaking?'
Well, it's all true, everyone is welcome, two people I'd never met, simply walked into the house and I wasn't bothered one bit :)
Of course they weren't complete strangers, and I was informed that they were heading over for poker, but still, I didn't feel the need to answer the door and be all formal, just left it open for them.
It's a liberating feeling, something that is just so alien in concept to us in the UK.
Here's our game anyway, Matt, Ryan, Chris, Me, JR and Christa.


Oh yeah, my house is smoke free. That cigarette you see on the table is an eCigarette ( uses some weird nicotine vapouriser thing, that activates when you suck it and even lights up the tip. The smoked still gets a hit, and exhales smoke. But it's more like vapour or the smoke from a Shisa, so doesn't stink up the house or anything.

Been sorting the study/dining room today and the PC. I'm going to hit Hayden's room tomorrow, fix up his bed and get the final stuff into boxes to put into the basement, then I can update the blog with some pictures of the house.

No Blogging

My laptop harddrive seems to have failed at the weekend and I cannot get into it.
I tried blogging from my iPhone, but the text fields would not allow input.
My main PC at home is still not rigged up, so I am unable to blog.

This is a update from work. Well not much has gone on over the weekend anyway. Had some peeps around on Friday noght for Poker, but then have been sorting the house. Sunday was spent as a lazy day on the sofa watching season 3 of Battlestar Galactica... and 7 episodes of season 4 :) So not much happened that day.
Went shopping last night, got loads of meat and supplies so that I can finally make some food and bring in lunches and pasta, rather than living on sandwiches and take out...

will update with photos of the new house set up once I have my PC working or laptop fixed.

The Beginning...

... of our new home in Canada.

Thankfully the lads came round, good to their word, and pretty much worked their butts off. Ryan helped build out Argos dresser downstairs to put stuff in. We messed it up a couple of times and had to un-screw things and waste time, bu at least we had beer :)
Matt helped me build our brand new oak wardrobe upstairs and whilst we were doing that (which took well over an hour I think.. really heavy and awkward... poxy allen keys, grrrr.
Whilst we did that JR had the unenviable task of sorting out the kitchen.

Matt got stuck in the wardrobe with his sides splitting, after I joked about this pub quiz that we'd been to on Tuesday night :)
Standard pub quiz gag... "What... and I'll repeat that question... Who, was the first person to land on the moon".
We didn't even finish until about 12:30-1:00am, and then manage to kick back with some beer, 5 cheeseburgers and a Shisa :)
JR did a sterling job on the Kitchen, I was amazed - he somehow managed to put it all away and I now have tons of cupboard space - this was one area that I just didn't know where to start, so I'm glad he sorted it out.

YESSSSS!!!!... Customs did not confiscate my sword :)

Our new sofa... as modelled by an Indian with contact lenses.... and a sword.

It was nice to have friends around and chill out here instead of at the bar getting wasted. I had Metal and Trance playing and a comfortable environment at last.

I'm watching American Idol at the moment and have been updating the last couple of posts with photos, and it's just nice to be in and sat on a sofa.

Good news is my UK TV seems to be working fine. It's dual voltage and I have the input from my Eastlink HD box going though HDMI, and even the normal broadcasts are working. I have my surround sound system set up and running off of a 300W max step-down transformer.

Also, I have the heating set at 21 degrees and it's warm now that the house is full, it's been costing a fortune for the past few week heating the empty rooms, I need them on 25.

I've been dumb actually, as I've been out so much I should have had the heating down much lower, but of course I never, ever intended on being out so much.

The house here has a decent timer that I can have come on in the morning and the evening at different temperatures, so... dumb really. At least now I don't even need it as high, and will try to stay in more as it's comfortable.

So, when I have the place a bit tidier, probably complete this as best as possible over the weekend, I'll update with pics.

Stuff

OK, I know it's Wednesday, but my house is now a complete tip. My stuff finally arrived on Monday and the guys unpacked it.
It sucked because I had to go to the airport (to Canada Customs) to sign for it at 9am. But they didn't arrive until 11am!!
Anyway, They had my container on this massive truck, it was tottally covered in ice (from the freezing rain), and they popped the seal to check that I wasn't harbouring any Chinese.
The seal is proof that it hasn't been opened since it left the port in England.

My house is on a corner of a small street, and this juggernaut could hardly fit there. The driver decided to reverse the container right up to the door and park across the road. He said "people can either go round or turn back eh?" :)
Well on Sunday Dave and Bob helped me destroy about 3 inches of ice out the front and I gritted it thoroughly to ensure these guys would not slip whilst carrying my stuff. Turned out unnecessary as the container door opened right onto the wooden steps, and straight into the house, so stuff didn't even hardly get wet.

I took this from the front door... That's how close it was

It was hectic as I had to verify each box number as they brought it in and tell them where to put it. Thankfully, White & Co in the UK had done a good job of marking each package with the source room it came from, for example Bed1, Bed2, Lounge etc. So they started being able to automatically put stuff in the correct room. This was their procedure, bring everything in, verify that nothing is missing and place it in the correct room.

Here's all the junk as the guys took off. I ended up tipping them, tipping is huge here in Canda... as are taxes, but.. when in Rome and all that $20 bucks each I though was more than generous.

Then they unpack it and place it in cupboards and stuff. They even help rebuild stuff and flat packed stuff, which White & Co said wouldn't happen.

So all my stuff is in, but I've basically moved a 3 bedroom house into a 2 bedroom, and it's really tight. As I have no shelving or cabinet space I have nowhere to put things. I'm going to need to buy some small cheap cabinet's for stuff.
Well I have many pictures and will update it when I can to this post, but I cannot easily get at the PC and do this right now as it's all a huge mess.
It was a milestone yesterday at work for the project I'm working on so we had to ensure it was ready for inspection by the publishers. Although we weren't behind it was still a very full day, and I didn't get out until 8pm.

I couldn't face going home last night, as I can't even step about or sit anywhere or use the cooker because there's just so much stuff piled high. So I ate out instead, then drank some so I could just go home and sleep without having to look at it.

A pint of tea from MacDonolds.... awesome!!!

Hopefully the lads are going to come round tonight and help me build the remaining cabinets, sort stuff and place stuff correctly in drawers. Don't get me wrong the removal men did a sterling job, they placed stuff in where they could, but as several cabinets need to be built and the kitchen is tiny, it inevitably got placed on whatever surface was available. To make matters worse, on Monday I had to run into work to fix some code that I'd done which was preventing the rest of the team from progressing to milestone. I felt responsible, so I went in and left these guys to unpack, they did their best, but if I'd been there I would have been able to perhaps get things a bit better - especially in the kitchen.

Anyway, hopefully after tonight it'll be much tidier with everything put away neatly, and anything that doesn't fit I can at least see and sort over the course of the week.

Freezing Rain

When the natives started talking about freezing rain, and acting all uppity about it, I just thought, oh... it's going to be cold and rainy, and worse, cold rain drops, I'll stay in the bar tonight then.
I didn't realise that it actually meant that the rain drops were freezing... by this I mean most rain hits a surface and splash up breaking apart. Not these, they hit a surface and stop dead.... frozen. It's the weirdest thing.

Everything is covered in a layer of ice. It looks like somebody came into town and covered everything in wax, leaves, layer of ice... cars, layer of ice.... branches layer of ice - all the way around, top and bottom. It's bizarre.

Jax's Birthday

It was Jax's birthday celebrations last night, they were meeting at 42nd Street for cocktails and then onward. Jax is a programmer from Geordie land who's worked for a few big companies, including EA (I think) in Vancouver.

I finished clearing up the house and washing, and was sat watching Tenacious D on TV, oh and Heroes. I wasn't feeling too well, got flu. However after some Neo Citran (Lemsip) and a rest it got to about 7:30 and I figured I would head out and have a few drinks. I hadn't eaten, and couldn't really face another microwave curry.

Anyway met up with them and had a Key Lime Pie Martini (which is as good as it sounds), then we moved on the The Olde Dublin pub.
What an amazing place, really good atmosphere, really good vibe, very much like a popular decent pub in England... the way they used to be, before they became posh wine/sports bars or poxy 'no music' WheatherSpoons. Proper.

The music was loud and a live band came on from Halifax, did some cool tunes including Sweet Child :), also Jazz Hands by the Scissor Sisters was played, and jazz hands was performed... by me... and me alone :(... ;)

For the first time I had Oysters and Lobster and it was awesome. A whole fresh lobster cost me just $29 CDN.

Matt took a picture on his iPhone as he was impressed by it's arrangement, considering this was just a pub.

Definitely a good place I'll try to head to more often. Guinness unfortunately is expensive however at $7.50.
Lots of people from work turned up and it was a different bunch to whom I normally hang out with, so it was nice to get to know them also.